Gruposura sells $300M In 10-year bonds; record demand

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Colombia’s largest holding company, Grupo de Inversiones Suramericana SA, or Gruposura, sold $300 million in new 10-year, dollar-denominated bonds at 5.786%, the company said Wednesday.

Demand for the bonds reached $5.2 billion, making it 17.3 times oversubscribed, the company said in a statement. That makes the sale “the most oversubscribed in the history of Colombian [bond] issues,” it said.

The proceeds will be used for international expansion plans, the company said, either directly or by way of companies that make up its portfolio.

Gruposura controls the country’s largest insurance firm, Suramericana SA, and holds large stakes in the country’s largest bank, Bancolombia SA; the country’s largest food company, Grupo Nutresa SA; and Colombia’s largest cement company, Cementos Argos SA.

“We’re very proud and contented for having a result so successful, which we interpret as a vote of confidence in Gruposura,” David Bojanini Garcia, the company’s president, said following the sale.

Gruposura Finance, a Gruposura subsidiary, led the bond sale and the bookrunners were Bank of America Corp. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., it said.

The company said its president went on a “road show” to sell the bonds, meeting with investors in Bogota as well as London, Santiago, Boston, Los Angeles and New York, where it completed the transaction. The bonds were rated investment grade by a pair of ratings agencies, which it said helped in the sale.